Adaptive Capacity - Climate Change Adaptation and Development: Transforming Paradigms and Practices - page 74

education and business opportunities (e.g. Jabeen et al. 2010; Simatele 2010). 12
Furthermore, while the effectiveness of a single coping strategy might be low,
the same strategy might prove vital in complementing other strategies to create
a sustainable coping system.
This study has identified two attributes that are crucial in a context of climate
change and uncertainty and which determine the sustainability of coping
systems: flexibility and inclusiveness. Flexibility relates to the number of measures
that address each risk factor and their diversity with regard to their thematic
and hazard-oriented foci and underlying patterns of social behaviour ( Table
4.3 ). Simply put, the more redundant and diverse the back-up measures that
a system provides for addressing a specific risk factor, the more flexible that
system is. Inclusiveness relates to the use of not just some but all of the four
potential risk reduction and adaptation measures to ensure that all types of risk
factors are addressed. Flexible and inclusive systems translate into the ability to
change in response to altered circumstances and to carry on functioning even
when individual parts fail. Take, for example, a coping system in which people
individually deploy just one physical measure to address location-specific
vulnerabilities. This does not provide any back-up system and is thus more rigid
than a system which combines various physical, environmental, socio-cultural,
economic and political/institutional measures to address vulnerabilities, through
individual and joint efforts. Nor is a system particularly inclusive if only
physical vulnerability reduction is used, while hazard reduction and avoidance,
preparedness for response and preparedness for recovery are not considered.
The idea of considering coping strategies in interrelated sets, as well as
dealing with the potential conflicts between 'strategies for survival' versus
'strategies for success', has been taken up by Ziervogel et al. (2006), albeit in a
rural context. They found that coping systems, or 'strategy sets', often include
strategies not directly aimed at reducing climate-related risk, an outcome that
is supported by this study. Reduced vulnerability to climate variability was
shown to be supported by coping systems that reduce the negative impacts
of a range of stresses, including climate, market variability, social and cultural
change. Furthermore, by calling for adaptation policies that are relevant 'firstly
to guarantee individuals' and communities' survival and then to help them to
succeed' (Ziervogel et al. 2006:302), they pinpoint how the latter cannot take
place without the former.
Dismissing people's local adaptation as 'merely coping', in the sense of
simply surviving without engendering any long-term improvements, can thus
have severe consequences. People's practices are constantly shaped and reshaped
by governmental and non-governmental policies and actions - which implies
that city authorities can both help and hinder adaptive processes on the ground
(see Adger et al. 2005; Moser et al. 2010; Pelling 2010; Wamsler 2014).
Many present-day adaptation interventions reinforce existing inequalities
and inequities, and do little to alleviate underlying vulnerabilities (Adger et al.
2003, 2005). Even worse, institutional assistance can, in fact, not only reinforce